Voluntary Citation Disclosure
Providing authors with more advanced and granular means of citation promotes better writing and increases readers’ understand and trust.
Here are a few questions that could be voluntarily answered by authors:
Do you have a source for that?
Yes,
Can you name the source?
Author/Organization, Title, Publisher/Site, Date
What kind of source is it? (Primary/Secondary)
1. This is a first-hand account.
Rate its Authenticity:
- I have access to the original physical source.
- I have access to the original electronic source.
- I have access to a scan of the original (image)
- I have a transcription of the source
- The source is a translation.
Rate its Originality:
- This the first publication.
- This is a republication of the original
2. This is commentary that relies on first-hand (and possibly secondhand) accounts.
- The source is named.
- The source’s affiliation is disclosed: an anonymous administrative official.
- Nothing is know about the source: a truly anonymous source.
3. This is commentary that does not have primary sources.
Google is Built on Citations. How can we build on and advance these citations?
Google motivates people to improve their websites to the point that many organizations hire search engine optimization teams to develop content that will raise the organization’s google rankings.
But what if people on the internet voluntarily developed standards to hold themselves to higher standards of evidence and civility, extending the concept of page rank to include portions of a page and more descriptive sources being cited?